min12xxw
Convert pbmraw streams to Minolta PagePro 12xxW languages
Synopsis
min12xxw
[options]
add an example, a script, a trick and tips
examples
gs -q -dBATCH -dSAFER -dQUIET -dNOPAUSE -sPAPERSIZE=a4
-r1200
-sDEVICE=pbmraw -sOutputFile=- - < test.ps | min12xxw -r 1200
>
test.min
This would convert a postscript file test.ps to a file test.min
which could be sent directly to the printer, a 1200W to be exact.
The output is rendered at 1200 dpi. If you have to drive some
other model, see the model selection option (-m) above.
description
Min12xxw
is a filter which converts pbmraw streams (produced by
ghostscript, for example) to the printer language of Minolta
PagePro 1[234]xxW printers.
bugs limitations contributors
Min12xxw was written without any documentation from the
manufacturer. The description of the printer language may be
inaccurate or even wrong because it was obtained by looking at
the output of the windoof driver only. The code dealing with the
compression of raster data is in its spirit heavily based on an
initial driver by Adam Bocim <beetman[:at:]seznam[:dot:]cz>
who managed to find out how things are done (thanks, Adam, you
did a great job!). This new version is considerably faster,
implemented more cleanly and (hopefully) well documented.
It also features querying the printer status and page counter, a
suggestion made by Bruno Schoedlbauer
<bruno.schoedlbauer[:at:]gmx[:dot:]de>, who also pointed me
to a nice USB sniffer by Benoit Papillault for Windoof 98 and up,
see http://benoit.papillault.free.fr/usbsnoop. (That little
program may prove very helpful on similar occasions. Happy USB
sniffing...)
David Hamilton <dhamilto[:at:]angel.homeip[:dot:]net> has
helped a lot in testing and developing the support for the
PagePro 1350W.
Even though this program has been designed with care and much
thought, no-one can guarantee that this program will not damage
your printer, computer or even your neighbour’s car, because it
was built without knowing exactly how things work, it’s only a
(hopefully) reasonable guess. (However, my printer does still
work, even after the testing phase when a lot of wrong stuff was
sent to it. And my neighbour hasn’t complained either...)
Most of the available paper sizes have not actually been verified
to work as advertised - reports about successes or problems are
welcome. Also the code for querying the printer is not heavily
tested. If you have comments to make or know more about the
format than I do, please share your thoughts and your knowledge.
13xxW series support seems to be relatively well tested by now.
Send mail with feedback if you have such a printer and you
experience problems.
1400W support is pretty new - please send e-mail if it works or
if you run into problems. Feedback on models for which support
has just been completed is very important to improve and
stabilise this support.
Bugs and problems reports are generally welcome because I just
don’t have the time to test everything out. I needed a filter and
here it is. If it does not work - complain ;-)
command line options
-h, --help
Gives usage information (help)
-v, --version
Displays the version number and exit
-e, --ecomode
Enables economic mode which saves toner by leaving every other
scanline blank. This degrades the printout’s resolution a little,
the effect is most easily seen (and looks particularly bad) when
printing in 300 dpi mode.
-s, --status
Query the printer status, page counter and whatever information
can be retrieved. The printer status is basically an unprocessed
dump of what the printer sends, so unexpected things may happen
if the printer sends funny data because it got confused
somehow... This might however still be useful. The page counter
and other information is heavily processed and should be more
reliable. Note that for queries to be made, the printer must (of
course) be switched on, with all cables connected, and not be
busy printing (or your print job may be truncated). See the
-d option below which sets the device file to use. This
has so far only been tested on 1200W, 1350W and 1400W printers.
Send mail if it works for others as well.
-d dev, --device dev
Sets the device file to use for queries. The default is /dev/lp0.
Please note that this option is only meaningful with the "-s" or
"--status" option. If you intend to send a document to the
printer, you have to redirect min12xxw’s standard output to the
device file in question. See the documentation that came with
your shell on how to do that.
-n, --nomargins
Disables the enforcement of the 0.17 inch margins on all sides of
the paper. The converter discards the equivalent of this length
of its input because ghostscript outputs a full page with
margins. If you arranged in some way for the input to be
marginless, or have slightly larger paper, you can give this
option to include the full input with margins. Please note that
for very small page dimensions, min12xxw might need to disable
enforcing the page margins for all pages following the offending
page to make the job printable. In that case, a warning message
will be printed on the standard error stream to inform the user.
-m model, --model model
Sets which printer model to produce output for. Currently, no
checks for features only available to specific models are made
(available paper trays differ from model to model, for example).
Let me know if this causes problems. Available models are: 1200W,
1250W, 1300W, 1350W, 1400W. 1200W is the default. As an
alternative, you can also symlink, link or rename your executable
to min1200w, min1250w, min1300w, min1350w or min1400w, thus
making the model specified in the filename the default model.
This saves you from typing the model selection option again and
again and again... Please note that you must supply the
model option correctly if you drive any other model than what is
the default. If you fail to do so, your printer will not produce
any output or react to status queries from the host.
-r resolution, --res resolution
Sets the resolution to either 300, 600 or 1200 dpi (600 dpi is
the default). Keep in mind that you need to produce your output
accordingly. It is also possible to specify the resolution as
(horizontal)x(vertical) resolution (e.g. -r 1200x600) where
horizontal resolution may be once or twice the vertical
resolution. The maximum resolution is 1200 dpi in both vertical
and horizontal direction. The minimum vertical resolution for
mixed resolution printing seems to be 600 dpi. 300 dpi printing
has only been tested on 1200W, 1350W and 1400W models. Mixed
resolution printing was seen for 13xxW and 1400W models only, but
tests show that the 1200W is capable of handling it as well, so
chances are that 1250W printers won’t have trouble, either.
-t tray, --tray tray
Sets the paper tray to be used. Valid values for tray are "auto",
"tray1", "tray2" and "manual", with "auto" being the default. Not
all printer models have all sorts of paper trays. "auto" should
be safe on all of them, I think. In fact, the PagePro 1400W seems
to have only this kind of paper tray.
-p type, --papertype type
Sets the type of paper used. Type can be one of "normal",
"thick", "transparency", "envelope" or "postcard". "normal" is
the default.
-f fmt, --paperformat fmt
This sets the paper format to be used for the print job. The
default value for fmt is "a4". Valid values are given below.
a4
A4 paper (210 mm x 297 mm)
b5
B5 envelope (176 mm x 250 mm)
a5
A5 paper (148 mm x 210 mm)
jpost
Post card (100 mm x 148 mm)
corpost
Correspondence Postcard (148 mm x 200 mm)
jisy6
JIS Yokei 6-gou paper (98 mm x 190 mm)
jisy0
JIS Yokei 0-gou paper (120 mm x 235 mm)
chinese16k
Chinese 16K paper (185 mm x 260 mm)
chinese32k
Chinese 32K paper (130 mm x 185 mm)
legal
Legal paper (8.5" x 14")
glegal
G. Legal paper (8.5" x 13")
letter
Letter paper (8.5" x 11")
gletter
G. Letter paper (8.5" x 10.5")
executive
Executive paper (7.25" x 10.5")
halfletter
Halfletter paper (5.5" x 8.5")
envmonarch
Envelope Monarch (3.875" x 7.5")
env10
Envelope COM-10 (8.125" x 9.5")
envdl
Envelope DL (110 mm x 220 mm)
envc5
Envelope C5 (162 mm x 229 mm)
envc6
Envelope C6 (114 mm x 162 mm)
envb5
Envelope B5 (176 mm x 250 mm)
Choukei-3Gou
Choukei-3Gou paper (120mm x 235 mm)
Choukei-4Gou
Choukei-4Gou paper (90 mm x 205 mm)
custom
Custom paper size
envb6
Envelope 6 3/4 (3.625" x 6.5")
folio
F4/Folio paper (210 mm x 330 mm)
jisy1
JIS Yokei 1-gou (120 mm x 176 mm)
jisy2
JIS Yokei 2-gou (105 mm x 235 mm)
quadpost
Quad postcard (200 mm x 296 mm)
portability
Min12xxw should run on most *nix-like workstations without
major problems. Library functions which are known to be missing
on non-Linux systems such as getline or getopt_long may have to
be replaced by an appropriate substitute. In case of getline and
getopt_long this has already been done. The query options may or
may not work on other systems, depending on the characteristics
of the printer driver and the interface used (USB, very old style
parallel port or a more recent one...).
author
Min12xxw
was written by Manuel Tobias Schiller
(mala[:at:]hinterbergen[:dot:]de).